The Canadian Commonwealth eBook

reciprocity to the United States the offer would be
accepted and reciprocated. It may be explained
that all these old-line Liberals from MacKenzie to
Laurier were free-traders of the Cobden-Bright school.
They believed in free trade not only as an economic
policy but as a religion to prevent the plundering
of the poor by the rich, of the many by the few.
One has only to turn to the back files of the Montreal
Witness and Toronto Globe from 1871 to
1895—­the two Liberal organs that voiced
the extreme free-trade propaganda—­to find
this political note emphasized almost as a fanatical
religion. The high-tariff party were not only
morally wrong; they were predestinedly damned.
I remember that in my own home both organs were revered
next to the Bible, and this free-trade doctrine was
accepted as unquestionably as the Shorter Catechism.

II

Well—­Laurier came to power; and he gathered
into his Cabinet all the grand old guard free-traders
still alive. As soon as the Manitoba School
Question was settled Laurier put his Manchester school
of politics into active practice by granting tariff
concessions on British imports. The act was
hailed by free-trade England as a tribute of statesmanship.
Laurier and Fielding were recognized as men of the
hour. The next step was to carry out the promises
of reciprocity with the United States. One can
imagine Sir John Macdonald, the old chieftain of the
high-tariff Conservatives, turning over in his grave
with a sardonic grin—­“Not so fast,
my Little Sirs!” When twitted on the floor
of the House over a high tariff oppressing farmers
and favoring factories, Sir John had always disclaimed
being a high-tariff man. He would have a low
tariff for the United States, if the United States
would grant Canada a low tariff—­he had answered;
but the United States would not grant Canada any tariff
concessions. And the grand old guard of Whigs
had jeered back that he was “a compromiser”
and “a trimmer,” who tacked to every breeze
and never met an issue squarely in his life.

If the Liberals had not been absolutely sincere men,
they would not have ridden to such a hard and unexpected
fall. They would, like Sir John, have trimmed
to the wind; but they believed in free trade as they
believed in righteousness; and they furthermore believed
all they had to do was to ask for it to get it.
Blake had retired from Canadian politics. George
Brown of the Globe was dead; Alexander MacKenzie
had long since passed away; but the old guard rallied
to the reciprocity cry. International negotiations
opened at Quebec. They were not a failure.
They were worse than a failure. They were a
joke. High tariff was at its zenith in the United
States. Every one of the American commissioners
was a dyed-in-the-wool high-tariff man. It would
be an even wager that not one man among them had ever
heard of the Cobden-Bright Manchester School of Free